In his essay "Abu Ghraib and its Shadow Archives," Macquarie University professor Joseph Pugliese makes this connection, writing that "the Abu Ghraib photographs compel the viewer to bear testimony to the deployment and enactment of absolute U.S. imperial power on the bodies of the Arab prisoners through the organizing principles of white supremacist aesthetics that intertwine violence and sexuality with Orientalist spectacle."
As a project of American post-9/11 empire building, Abu Ghraib and the torture of prisoners there should be viewed through the lens of what I call carceral imperialism -- an extension of the American carceral state beyond its borders in the service of domination and hegemony. (The Alliance for Global Justice refers to a phenomenon related to the one I'm discussing as "prison imperialism.") The distinction I draw is based on my focus on the war on terror and how the prison became a tool through which that war was being fought. In the case of Abu Ghraib, the capture, detention, and torture through which Iraqis were contained and subdued was a primary strategy of the U.S. colonization of Iraq and was used as a way to transform detained Iraqis into a visible threat that would legitimize the U.S. presence there. (Bagram prison in Afghanistan was another example of carceral imperialism.)
Beyond Spectacle and Towards Justice
What made the torture at Abu Ghraib possible to begin with? While there were, of course, several factors, it's important to consider one above all: the way the American war not on, but of terror rendered Iraqi bodies so utterly disposable.
One way of viewing this dehumanization is through philosopher Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer, which defines a relationship between power and two forms of life: zoe and bios. Zoe refers to an individual who is recognized as fully human with a political and social life, while bios refers to physical life alone. Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib were reduced to bios, or bare life, while being stripped of all rights and protections, which left them vulnerable to uninhibited and unaccountable violence and horrifying torture.
Twenty years later, those unforgettable images of torture at Abu Ghraib serve as a continuous reminder of the nature of American brutality in that Global War on Terror that has not ended. They continue to haunt me -- and other Muslims and Arabs -- 20 years later. They will undoubtedly be seared in my memory for life.
Whether or not justice prevails in some way for Abu Ghraib's survivors, as witnesses - even distant ones -- to what transpired at that prison, our job should still be to search for the stories behind the hoods, the bars, and the indescribable acts of torture that took place there. It's crucial, even so many years later, to ensure that those who endured such horrific violence at American hands are not forgotten. Otherwise, our gaze will become one more weapon of torture -- extending the life of the horrific acts in those images and ensuring that the humiliation of those War on Terror prisoners will continue to be a passing spectacle for our consumption.
Two decades after those photos were released, what's crucial about the unbearable violence and horror they capture is the choice they still force viewers to make -- whether to become just another bystander to the violence and horror this country delivered under the label of the War on Terror or to take in the torture and demand justice for the survivors.
Copyright Maha Hilal 2024
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